From Behind the Camera

I found out at work today that our newest customer has requested bios and pictures of the project team. "Well, bummer," I thought, because we'd just had family pictures taken the night before for the church photo directory, and the photographer asked if we wanted individual photos of all of us, or just group shots. I thought, "school pictures are just around the corner, and I don't need a new picture of my husband for my desk..."

"Oh, we don't need any individual pictures," I said. "Not even of you and your husband?" asked the Helpful Photographer-slash-Sales Guy. "Oh, no. We'll be OK," I said, trying to be a little price-conscious. And self-conscious. Whoops. Is it a coincidence that the offer of a photo of myself and the need for a photo of myself are a day apart? I really need to start paying better attention to these signals.

Back at work, mulling over the idea of a head shot that's appropriate to share with a business prospect (even a customer!), I realized, I don't have any! At my first "real" job, the company put together a Who's Who book for employees - you received a book on your first day, with photos and trivial information about the other employees. New employees showed up at the photo studio a couple weeks after they started work, posed for a headshot, and a half-sheet photo/bio page was handed out to everyone about every quarter. A sizable expense, I'm sure, but a real nicety, especially for a new employee. I believe we'd talked about updating that photo book at some point during my tenure at that job, and even thought about putting it on the company Intranet. I believe we were hard-up for some content.

So, my last (first, and only) head shots are from 1994. It's one of my favorite pictures of me, but I don't match it anymore. Probably not a real option.

Back at my desk, I mentally flipped through recent pictures we'd taken - our trip to the Kennedy Space Center, the beach, DisneyWorld...what kind of impression would that give to this customer? I take a lot of vacations? I did toy with the idea of cropping the rest of the crew out of this picture and submitting this version of me. "I am out of this world!!" ;-)

But, this is also probably not appropriate for the customer. Other photos are of me making silly faces (those always seem to turn out better), or wearing silly hats. Again, probably not the right message to send to a business prospect. And really, to tell the truth, because I'm always behind the camera taking pictures of everyone else, there aren't that many pictures of me to pick from. Sigh.

So, this photo thing needs to go on my to-do list for the weekend. I'd do it tomorrow at work, but it's Wear Your Colors Day, so I'll be sporting my new UW shirt (a souvenir from the trip to Racine). I'll take in my camera. Maybe I can make it work. Go Big Red!

I'll keep you all posted with my progress.